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The Moov Fitness Tracker

I came across this earlier today on The Verge and immediately recognized its potential. Called Moov, it’s a wearable fitness coach that works with your phone to provide real-time feedback while exercising. It looks very cool.

Unlike current activity trackers like the Fitbit and the Nike Fuelband, which primarily act as passive pedometers, the Moov uses 9-axis sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer) to track the movement of your arms and/or legs, allowing it to pass you audio instructions on your phone to improve your form and count reps.

I’ve skipped the current trackers like the Fitbit for one big reason – they are really just step trackers. This isn’t a bad thing if you want to motivate yourself to walk more, but it doesn’t do anything for other types of activities. My iPhone 5s already does this courtesy of its M7 motion chip, too, so there’s not much added value.

The real-time nature of the Moov could prove to be useful, though. And it’s shipping with support for running, cycling, swimming, cardio boxing, and bodyweight training1, so it should immediately be more helpful than current wearables.

The makers are using preorders to fund the first batch of devices, and are offering a very good half-price deal for a limited time. If this sounds interesting to you, too, grab one before the price goes up.

Golf, free weight training, and yoga will be added in the next batch, with more activities to follow. ↩